Spreading The Misery

Republicans have seen California's budget disaster and have learned the appropriate lesson:  If you make it impossible by law to raise taxes, you too can cause a massive meltdown in state budgets and destroy any semblance of government programs and infrastructure.

And remember...they always do it bigger in Texas.

Last month, Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) took to the House floor to proclaim that California’s Proposition 13 — which requires that a two-thirds majority of the state legislature approve any tax increase — should be a “guiding light” for the nation. And Lungren is evidently not the only one who believes crippling a state’s ability to craft a budget is a good thing.


In a column yesterday, the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore — no stranger to nonsensical economics — heaped praise onto Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who is calling for Texas to adopt a Prop. 13-type measure:

On Wednesday, Mr. Perry moved to seal the deal with conservatives by calling for a new constitutional set of protections for taxpayers. Call it a Texas-style “taxpayer bill or rights.” Mr. Perry wants the state’s constitution amended to require a two-thirds vote requirement of the legislature for any tax hikes. He also wants state spending capped at the rate of annual population growth plus inflation.

This is certainly a nice-sounding populist measure. But it’s just one more instance of Republicans advocating an approach to budgeting that is not at all serious.

As Time’s Kevin O’Leary wrote, Prop. 13 lies “at the root of California’s misery,” leaving it no choice but to cut its budget to ribbons during the economic downturn. California has had to gut public education, slash social services and health care programs, close prisons, and lay off record numbers of public employees.

The odds of Texas getting a two-thirds Democratic supermajority?  Zilch.  Even Democrats in California can't swing those kinds of numbers.  It's effectively making tax increases impossible, ever.

(More after the jump...)


Ahh, but it gets worse:  our old friend The Odious Patrick McHenry (R-Teabagger) wants to bring that kind of  "responsible budgeting" to the entire country!

In the last few months, a bunch of self-styled “deficit hawks” — led by Sens. Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) — began pushing for the creation of a bipartisan deficit commission. The commission would, in theory, tackle the country’s budget problems by crafting a package of spending cuts and tax increases that would face an up or down vote in Congress. President Obama is reportedly “seriously considering” support for the creation of such a commission.

As many have aptly noted, far from being the solution to our budgetary problems, the commission merely sets more veto points into an already dysfunctional legislative process. (Just getting past the commission stage would require 14 of the 18 commission members approving the recommendations.)

But some conservatives have seized on the commission idea and crafted an even more ridiculous proposal: the creation of a commission that will attempt to control deficits while being explicitly barred from considering any sort of tax increase. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is leading the charge:

“We must address unsustainable deficit and entitlement spending, but not at the expense of economic growth,” said Congressman McHenry. “Raising taxes is not the answer. This bill takes a decisive step toward true structural reform to ensure that future generations are not saddled with crippling levels of debt. Thus far, Congress has shown itself incapable of making these hard choices; it’s become clear that an outside commission is necessary.”

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist has an op-ed in the Washington Times today in which he praised McHenry for having a “grown-up idea – set up a commission that recommends spending reduction – and no tax hikes.”

Imagine, a commission where you would need 14 of 18 votes to pass anything on a federal budget program.  Five Teabaggers could effectively shut down the entire government...oh, and the commission could never consider spending increases.  Ever.

Given the performance of the Teabaggers this year, you'd think Obama would laugh at these idiots.  But it seems he may be consigning the federal budget to the same hell California's in right now.